Review #13: Ora et Labora

# of Players: 1-4
Playtime: 2-3 Hours

Core Mechanic: Worker Placement

Theme: Medieval
Type: Euro

Weight: Heavy

Year: 2011

Rating: 9*

By the time this game came out, both Agricola and Le Havre were two of my favorite games and because of this, Uwe Rosenberg was probably my favorite game designer at the time and likely still is. Therefore, the hype I created for myself surrounding this release was massive. In the end, this game was full of ideas that were new to me at the time, including the tile placement, production wheel, and interesting worker placement mechanics, but there was something about the game that held it back from hitting the same highs that his previous games did.

As with most, if not all, Uwe Rosenberg games, the winner is the player with the most victory points. The game is played over several rounds with each round consisting of five phases: return workers if possible, rotate production wheel, settlement phase if possible, action phase, and rotating the starting player. During the main action phase, you have three options. The first option is to place one of your own workers into your own building or one of your opponents’ workers through a work contract into his or her own building to use the building’s effect, similar to Le Havre.  Work contracts require you to pay your opponent but give you more flexibility and forces your opponent to use up his or her workers.  Each player has three workers and workers remain on the buildings until all are placed, which happens in the next round.  Thus, by forcing another player to use his or her worker, you are possibly denying any action this round, which is a bit different from traditional worker placement blocking.

The second option is to fell trees or cut peat, which gives you resources and space on your board to construct buildings.  The last option is to construct a building into an empty space with resources or money, which are worth victory points and allow for actions to be carried out when workers are placed in them.  There are certain rules that dictate building placement on your board, which adds an interesting spacial element.  As well, not all workers are created equal - each player has a special worker called a prior which, if available, can be placed immediately into a new building.  As mentioned earlier, this can have devastating effects if you can force another player to use his or her prior.

The production wheel is absolutely fantastic.  One of the minor issues of Le Havre and Agricola was watching the resources pile sky high when people didn’t take them.  This production wheel simplifies everything significantly and makes it very easy to see how resources may build as the game proceeds.  The use of a joker resource also provides much needed flexibility.  I also really enjoyed having buildings that worked like the ones in Le Havre, but needing to actually place them on a board where there are restrictions and adjacency bonuses.  Visually, it was appealing to see my small village grow and grow.

Like I previously mentioned, this game didn’t click for me in the same memorable ways that Agricola or Le Havre did.  The components, such as the flimsy boards, were lacking as well.  However, as I wrote this review and looked over the rules again, I remembered how fascinating the mechanisms are and I really want to play it again.  Perhaps with some more plays I can appreciate this game a bit more and it may even rise up the ranks a bit.

I am not sure what place this game has in a collection. Even though I adore worker placement games I am trying to really limit how many I am including. This is also another heavy one and I would be hard pressed to ever pick it over Agricola or Le Have except for if I wanted a change of pace. For now, it is another game that does not make any collection. Perhaps if I decide there enough worker placement games to make up a good worker placement collection, this would be an ideal candidate.